Calla Lilies from Seed

I got my very first Calla Lily flower on Xmas Eve from the plants I grew from seed. Now that colour is showing, it will help when I sell them soon.

Here are some photos taken in the last week.

Summer Has Arrived

Our day of 40C came and went, with no noticeable casualties in the garden, so all good until next time.

Quiet in the Garden

It's fairly quiet in the garden, with everything growing happily, so not a lot to post about on the blog.

I got my stitches out on Friday and my head feels better for it, so a haircut and a good shampoo did wonders as well. 

We spent Friday night in Ararat staying at Anh's Motel and had a great meal (banquet) in the restaurant. Came back yesterday and stopped at Beaufort and noticed they had a Market, so decided to have a wander. We saw a stall selling tomato plants so went over for a look. I said to the lady setting up, "Is your name Penny", so we met with long time forum member Penny and her husband.

In the garden

The Onions, Butter Beans, Telephone Peas and Tomato plants are all doing well, but the hotter weather will put them under some strain in the coming weeks. I managed to get a few bags on the flower trusses of my tomatoes and give them a light prune. Jan's Potatoes are a metre high now, so all being well they'll have produced heaps of spuds to make it worthwhile.

Lots to do in the coming few weeks as I'm selling off a lot of plants, so need to sort and pack them ready for that. The Calla Lilies will need to come out of the cold frame as it's getting hot in there now and although they don't mind it hot, may end up getting cooked in there if we get a real hot day.

I got a new domain name for my practice web page, so once that's up and running I'll close up shop on Crazy Domains and then think about a holiday.

On The Trot

Busy this week as back to work after my 'life threatening infection', plus trying to catch up on the jobs that I've let slip while sick. I've now got a working overhead sprinkler system on the Correa tubes in the cage, plus I got busy with the Glyphosate on the weeds along the back fence and also along my neighbours fenceline, which I spray to stop her Kikuyu coming through into our garden. Then there's the Dipel spraying which is about 60% done as I had to have surgery at Frankston today and I came off second best and look like I've been in having brain surgery, even with the shave to the head.

I doubt I'll get light duties here or at work, so I'll just take it how it comes in the next few days.

I'm still playing with the new web host and have uploaded a new Wordpress page to it so I can start to play with something different. I need a new domain name for the new site, I wonder what I can name it.

Gotta love Wordpress!!

Tomatoes in - Been Busy

I guess I was lucky I managed to get my tomatoes planted before being bunged into hospital for a week, which gave everyone a scare, even my doctor who finally came back from holidays.

I have some recovering to do, just wish I wasn't so damn sensitive to some medications, but we know what they are now.

I have lost 3 plants for the 219 potted up, all self sown Correas that emerged in the garden this year. I have 130 Calla Lilies looking fantastic, about 36 are approx 45-50cm high and are loving it in the cold frame. Today I started to put up the 13mm poly to connect sprinklers over the cage where I have 1000+ Correa tubes, so watering will be a simple task when finished.

My hothouse has been removed and I'll start on construction of a bigger one over the Xmas period, as I want this one to have a galvanised tube frame, not like the PVC of the old one.

We're 6 weeks out from taking the tops out of the small tomato crop at work, which will then give us a month for the plants to wind down before being pulled out.

I've moved my Correa web page to a host in the USA this week and I'm really glad to be getting away from the shonky mob I had hosting it here in Oz. They still haven't acknowledged my email about closing my hosting accounts early, but I've had nothing but problems with them and they know it and I can do with a rest from web related 'problems'.

Looking forward to a quiet Summer, maybe tour the Goldfields and parts of South Australia this time and maybe drop in on the rellies in Adelaide along the way.

A Plant Sale perhaps

With an above normal Summer temperature forecast this Summer, I'm looking at selling off some plants in bulk lots, with the following most likely to be on the list.

120 - One year old Calla Lily tubers breaking leaf at the moment.(140mm pots)
40 - Tuberous Begonias also breaking leaf. (140mm pots)
100 - Asparagus (White, Purple or Mary Washington) in fern and in 90x90 tubes & 140mm pots

Plus Correas (lots of 50) with 1000 plants in 70x70mm tubes available.
These are mainly species varieties gathered from across Victoria.


Contact me if interested.

A Few Photos from Today

The propagation is now starting to slow down, so I can now concentrate on the vegie garden, with Telephone Peas, Butter Beans, Continental Cucumbers, Golden Zucchini & Silverbeet already in the ground. The hothouse is still full, mainly of Correa seedlings and Tomato seedlings, plus about 50 pots of mixed Correa cuttings.

I've now got 130 Calla Lilies, 100 Asparagus, 43 Tuberous Begonias and about 20 Hibiscus insularis, as well as 1000 tubes of Correas, maybe I'll have to sell some in bulk lots. Then of course there are about 50 Tomato plants which round off what is taking up the room here.

Here's a few shots taken around the garden today.

 

Naga Jolokia

Lettuce

Bauhania

My hothouse - Left side

My hothouse - Right side

 Asparagus

 Strawberries

 Herbs

So Far Behind In The Garden

I must get myself moving and get this Blog up-to-date, as my Correa growing and searching has taken up all of Winter and is encroaching on Spring and what I need to be doing to get a tomato bed going.

I've managed to germinate some tomato seeds, of which half have been pricked out and potted into 100mm square pots, the rest are coming soon. Today I potted into 70mm square tubes about 90+ of my self sown Correa seedlings, which has made a bit of room in the Cold Frame. In the coming days I'll pot up the last of the Calla Lily tubers, change the potting mix in the last of about 50 Tuberous Begonias, then think about what I'll do with about 100 Asparagus plants I have as one year old crowns, mostly in tubes.

I really need more space as I also need to build a bigger hothouse before I kick off propagation in March. Maybe we'll look at selling up here and move, as having such a small yard is a hindrance how it is at the moment.

 Here are the 64 pots of Calla Lilies I did earlier this week.

These are 90 self sown Correa seedlings I've potted into tubes.

Cold Week Here

I've been busy trying to get my baby Correa plants undercover this past week as we've had frosts forecast, as predicted so far this week, they've probably been the worst we've had here in a very long time. I've been building a Cold Frame for the tubed plants, but between work, the Garden Forum (where did all these new members come from, hi Bluey) and my Correa page, I haven't had time to do much on it.

Here's where I got to with the frame work on the first week.

Then after being covered with Marine Ply, I had to stand it and use it because we were going to be away in Bendigo and I had to protect the new growth from the frosts. I couldn't get all my plants inside this Cold Frame, so the rest are under a low shadecloth slung over them to stop the frost settling on them.

At 3.0 metres long by 1.2 metres wide, it should ease the workload from my small hothouse. All that's needed now are the three glass lift up panels, the centre one will have an AVO (Auto Vent Opener) fitted.

Critically Endangered

Some of the satisfaction you get from growing plants, with these listed as 'Critically Endangered' in their natural habitat, with just two clumps of plants currently surviving. These are Hibiscus insularis, from Phillip Island in the Norfolk Island group of the Pacific Ocean.

I have a few more to strike making my current total 14 plants, with 3 seedlings emerging recently, so I'm more than happy to grow these.

Cuttings In Willow Water

Here's one of three lots of cuttings I have sitting in Willow Water, this one since Monday. The recommendation is to soak overnight, then propagate as you would normally, but I'm trialing a week - just to be different. The cuttings don't look stressed, so we'll see what happens.

Seed Grown Hibiscus

I had some seeds left for the Phillip Island Hibiscus (Hibiscus insularis) so I planted them, with the first one germinating this week. I've had better success with cuttings of this plant, with about a dozen striking at the present time.

A seedling ...

Communal Progagation

I've been playing around with communal propagation (multiple cuttings in one pot) and have had some good results so far. Here are some Scaevola 'Mauve Clusters' taken as cuttings on 15/03 and checking today 10/04 found a fairly good strike rate amongst them. (Maybe I should try that again)

Willow Water

Chopped up stems from a Willow (Salix) seeped in boiling water overnight which will hopefully make a natural plant hormone for striking cuttings. The sticks are removed and just the water used to stand cuttings in overnight before placing in propagation media. An old traditional way of helping plants strike roots, so we're giving it a trial run here.

We've made a bigger batch since and left it to seep for 36 hours and it is a lot stronger, darker too.

Propagation Trial

Gearing up for the cooler months to strike cuttings, so I've set up bottom heat (1.2m) for my babies. A cosy 22C should help them decide what they should do. :-)

Natives in The Post

I've decided to branch out a bit with my hobby and buy some Correa plants from interstate, well Tasmania to be specific. I placed my order of six tubes with John Gibson, of Plants of Tasmania Nursery on the Sunday so he could mail out yesterday. They were packed in the morning and placed in a 3kg Express Post satchel and dispatched from Hobart that night and I collected them at 7.30 a.m. Tuesday morning. Plants travel well in the post if packed right, as I found out a few years ago when I sent about 15-20 Correa plants "Bare Rooted' to Canberra, something no-one dares to do, but it's all in knowing your plants.

Here's a few photos I took recently.

Summer Cuttings - Australian Natives

Summer, a real bad time to try striking native cuttings, not only because of the heat, but also because it allows a callous to form on the cutting instead of roots and cuttings may need nicking and re-dipping to force roots to form. If you get them struck, then you need to keep them out of the sun in a shady spot as they establish themselves.

These are up to the looking for shade stage.